GU: We’re all Idiots

Went to this talk yesterday at the Hunterian Lecture Theater at 17:45 –“Of Dust and Air: Duchamp’s Aesthetics of the Immaterial”Do not ask me about the talk. It was a gold-mine for standup comedy material if I was one of those idiots who make fun just because the idiotic audience wants to see someone or something however idiotic (like the India/US elections) ripped apart. What this talk made me realize is that we are all basically idiots. Here is a proof –Let us divide all humanity into three categories. Artists. Critics. Spectators. Every human is slotted into either one or more of these categories. No escape. If a person is an Artist, he/she/it is an idiot because if not, the intellectual potential could have been used in some other pursuit which could progress civilization. If a person is a critic, he/she/it is an idiot to even think that they can understand Art in the first place let alone interpret it with their own bigoted prejudiced mind and dump it down the throats of unsuspecting prey. Also, the first argument that they could have done something better still holds. Next spectators. That is obvious isn’t it? If they need someone to explain them Art, what are they except for being idiots. The previous two arguments still hold for them too as everyone is an Artist. We are all actors playing roles in the stage of life. All actors are Artists. Of course this should annoy you to be called an idiot by someone as idiotic as me. It really does not hurt when a Professor calls us an idiot but if an idiot says the same word with the same tone and frequency, it just hurts more. I wonder why? I wonder how? That is beside the point.Anyway, here is an example from the lecture. There is a framed silk cloth on which coffee was spilt. When a person sees a piece of silk spoiled by coffee and interprets that the artist was talking about ‘mourning’ and ‘conflict’ and ‘randomness of life’, that is fine. Each to their own idioticity. But if this person spends the better part of his/her/its life coming to this mundane useless pointless conclusion and tries to convince others to appreciate the beauty of a coffee spill, then that person should be an idiot. No doubt. The person who made it (what is to say that he was just cursing coffee spilt on his tie by a child which his agent markets as art and leaves it open to interpretation and discussion to the before said idiots) and calls it Art is a greater idiot. And one who asks a question on this like ‘as a determined non-[some artists name]ish (laughter), I just very gently want to query the concept of spilling things (referring to masturbation) being a male perogative’ is the greatest idiot of all and everyone who is in that group of spectators is likewise.
If you do not think all this (including this post) is idiocacy (if there is such a word), you are the greatester idiot of us all. Welcome to the club mate!OK, you need more convincing, eh? Right. We are all very confident of others idioticness. We know pretty sure that our recording equipment is imperfect. We can hear but cannot listen. We can see but cannot observe. We can sense but cannot feel. We can taste but not appreciate. We can accumulate data but cannot understand knowledge. And worst of all, we cannot remember most things at all. Case in point, this is what I got the other day –
‘I prefer not to send out my slides, at this time. But there is a paper about this work, you can find it’
And this yet another day –
‘I would really like it if no one records this talk’

Daffy. What does all this say? Duh, think, you idiot. Sorry that was an oxymoron. Should have realized. The reason dear fellow, is that people ask others to attend talks but yet not allow them to be recorded in non-volatile medium because they are quietly confident that everyone else are idiots (except them of course which makes them greater idiots). The words coming as it is verbatim from Professors, we have to take things at face value.